You can check out the interview here.

Tom, who is our Managing Editor for Correspondents, has been leading our outstanding coverage of the global economy and today he offered his insights on a special segment of the program titled “Talk of the World.” Tom shared his knowledge as an economist and on-the-ground reporter about how the crisis is affecting every corner of the globe. He also shared the GroundTruth that he is hearing every day from our correspondents in the field and that we are posting every day at GlobalPost.

In the world of business reporting, there seems to be an endless barrage of charts and graphs and metrics and headlines and experts on Wall Street. But there is very little reporting from the field and that is where we feel we have set ourselves apart.

Our coverage of the global economic crisis has gotten a lot of attention, particularly our special project “A World of Trouble” in which we offer an interactive map that takes you to 20 different countries where 20 of our correspondents offer insight and analysis of how the downturn is affecting the country in which they live and report every day.

It is GroundTruth on the global economy.

And while I am boasting about our coverage, I want to add one more shout out to Tom Mucha and our multimedia storyteller extraordinaire, Mark Scheffler, who were recognized by SABEW, the Society for American Business Editors and Writers, for their year-long series on entrepreneurs which they did last year for Crain’s Chicago Business.

It’s been quite a week so far, starting off with a strong story about GlobalPost in the New York Times business section and a great mention on the DailyCandy.com, a very hip, insider’s guide to what’s hot delivered by email to all those who know what’s cool in fashion, food and fun. And, clearly, they are cool enough to care about the world and applaud our coverage, particularly the fact that we have some tremendously talented women who cover some seriously dangerous and interesting places.

So GlobalPost is getting hot and the traffic to the site is starting to suggest that. We hope you keep coming and reading and letting us know what you think about our coverage of the world.

We are a work in progress and there are definitely going to be places where we can improve. We value your input and feedback. Please let me know how you think the site is working and what we can do better.

Our goal at GlobalPost is to tell great stories from all over the world.













And in the lead up to the Jan. 20th inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States, we are organizing our storytelling around a single question: What does the idea of America mean to the world? The special project is called “For Which It Stands.”

We wanted to find stories in every corner of the globe at a time when new leadership is setting out — at least in the resonant speeches of the campaign — to redefine or “reboot,” as Obama put it, America’s relationship with the world. We do not believe in partisan journalism and we vow to be as tough and fair in our reporting on this president as any other. But we do believe this is a moment in our country that transcends party politics and offers an opportunity for America to engage with the world in a new way. We very much want to be a news organization that taps into that new energy in this new administration.

So please go to the guide to our series For Which It Stands to navigate all of the great stories and multimedia that make up the series. There are more than 50 stories reported by more than 40 reporters as well as a handful of photographers, videographers and multi-media producers.

Today, you will see a lyrical and poignant photo essay accompanied by a strong piece of writing by a friend and colleague, Seamus Murphy. It is titled Seeing America: From Kennedy to Obama and I invite you to see and read his work. He is an extraordinary storyteller. I also hope you have time to read Matt McAllester’s piece on Guantanamo about the former guard and former prisoner who are coming together to try to find some common ground in their anger over what happened there. Matt is also a friend and colleague and an incredibly talented and principled reporter. And there is HDS Greenway comparing Obama to Wilson; Joshua Hammer in Berlin on Kennedy, Reagan and Obama and the historic speeches they made there; Royal Ford introducing his new column Wheels or Jack Farrell on foreign policy in Washington. There are also guest writers including NPR’s acclaimed reporter Deb Amos and the brilliant Israeli author Gershom Gorenberg. The list is just too long. But the guide will serve you well in finding out what’s there, so please use it.

One of the more engaging multimedia stories that I hope you will see has a back story that involves Johnny Cash and I think captures the spirit of GlobalPost. You see, we at GlobalPost want to be the Johnny Cash of international news.

I was joking with a few friends back in the summer about that. Off the cuff, I said how we wanted to be like The Man in Black telling stories in the world that are honest and true and that come from the street and have an ear for the music of America.

But what I didn’t realize then was that there was a great story teller out there named Greg Warner who was playing Johnny Cash on his accordion in Afghanistan. Someone sent me a YouTube video of his performance of “Ring of Fire” in Mazar-e-Sharif and it was a good laugh. But then I heard one of his reports from the Congo on NPR and I immediately called him and now he is doing a few multimedia columns for us. He is on his way to Kenya now.

One of his columns is about his “Accordion Journey” as he calls it through Afghanistan. It’s the kind of story telling we want to do at GlobalPost. And since today is the 50th Anniversary of the release of the Folsom Prison Blues single and the 40th anniversary of his concert inside the prison. I thought it was fitting to do a shout out and invite you to watch the video which has a great tribute to Johnny at the end. It even had a public viewing tonight at the “Cash Bash” at the Milky Way Lounge in Jamaica Plain, Boston in a night celebrating “the Man in Black.”

We are live!

It’s the end of the first day and it’s grown quiet again here at GlobalPost headquarters here in Boston after a day of hard work and some celebration. There are sticky Champagne stains on the conference table where we have our news meetings. Just a great day to see the site come alive. All that hard work by our correspondents in the field and our editors here in Boston came together to give rise to a new voice in international reporting. And this is the first minute I have had time to post.

The feedback has been positive. I did an interview which aired today on NPR’s Here and Now. Co-founder and CEO Phil Balboni and I were guests on the Emily Rooney show “Greater Boston” out of WGBH in Boston. We also had The New Republic in our office for most of the morning observing our first day. We had a story on TechCrunch that was favorable and generated a lot of buzz.

We really want to hear your comments so please keep them coming.

I hope you had a chance to read the exclusive story we offer today on Mugage by our own Senior Editor Andrew Meldrum who lived in and covered Zimbabwe for most of the last 25 years. His story documents a mounting case against Mugabe for a war crimes tribunal. And Andrew will be following the story up tomorrow so stay tuned.

Also, hope you had a chance to read our Jerusalem correspondent Matt Rees on the situation in Gaza and see the kind of narrative reporting he brings to a hard news daily story in southern Israel where Israeli bomb sappers can pick up the shrapnel from Hamas rockets, but they can’t take away the fear. From the other side of Gaza at the Egyptian checkpoint, take a look at Theo May’s gripping account of the Palestinian wounded who are being rushed across the border for medical treatment.

These stories are all promoted on the home page but they are also archived on the country page and on the correspondents’ bio page. You can get to the bio pages by clicking on a correspondent’s byline or photo or by going to the navigation bar and clicking on correspondents. On these correspondent bio pages you will also have access to their “reporter’s notebooks,” which are essentially reporting blogs. There is lots of great stuff in every corner of the site. We invite you to keep checking it out and keep sending the feedback.